I grew up in a small town on the outskirts of NYC, surrounded by the Long Island Sound.  In the 80s.  Can you hear the Bon Jovi playing in the background? We could see the skyline from our tiny beaches.  Being on the brink of that big city, every cheesy, regretful trend hit us.  Hard.

It was big hair and big fun.  As teenagers, many a weekend was spent trolling the quiet, dark streets for the next “beach party”.  We were mischievous.  Rebellious.  

But “back in the day”, there was an innocence to it.  We may have snuck a swig of cheap wine from the older siblings (the drinking age had only just gone up to 21…we were confused!) or tried to smoke a cigarette, but we knew when to stop.  

I reflect on that time.  What makes me cringe more than our slightly illegal, teenage behavior was the way I treated my mom.  I was rotten.  To the core.  Completely anti-family.  I would have rather been hanging out with my friends. And I made sure she knew that.

So here I literally sit with Big Guy and Little Guy.  In our car.  With Really Big Guy. As we drive back from a long weekend at the beach.  Their skin is brown.  Their hair is sun streaked.  And they look content.  Happy.  Happy with us.

As I catch a glimpse of the boys in my rearview mirror, it’s hard not to jump ahead.  About seven years or so.  I can picture exactly what they will look like.  What they will be like remains the mystery.  What the teenage versions of Big Guy and Little Guy will be thinking as we drive as a family.  I used to wish I could be somewhere else.    

I gaze at their expressionless expressions and search for a clue.  A clue as to when it will change.  Some indication of whether or not the waters are going to get rough and cold.  And if so, to what degree?

Perhaps I am assuming the worst. But I also know that if you buy off on the old cliché of the apple not falling far from the tree, it’s inevitable. If my mom’s words from years before (“Just you wait!”) have been heard, I am doomed.

I’ve gotten some tiny tastes.  At age 7, both Little Guy and Big Guy told me they were running away.  Big Guy walked out the front door one late afternoon. He was done.  Fortunately for me, he had forgotten his shoes.  I watched his little body at the curb and pleaded with him to at least come back and put them on.  Perhaps grab a jacket.  And a bottle of water and some food.  Two years later, he’s still here.

Little Guy was more calculated.  He wanted a new family.  Packed up his soccer bag and decided it was time to go.  Walked out the door.  Where as Big Guy wanted me to stop him, Little Guy did not.  He ran when I approached.  Went so far as to start walking up the street.  Six months later, he’s still here, too.

I can laugh now.  But only a little.  Because the eye rolling, slamming doors, talking back and the general consensus that I embarrass them mean it’s coming.  One day.

I shudder as I see glimpses of my former self.  I wonder if the terrible teens are somewhat preventable.  

I’d like to imagine that there is a vault in my boys’ brains.  A lockbox of good memories.  I imagine that as soon as they developed their ability to remember, they began to store all their good memories for safe keeping.  Making deposits.   And, in a few years, when troubled times come up – when Big Guy and Little Guy decide their parents are fully horrific – they can pull out the good memories.  A memory, let’s say, that takes them back to right now, in the car.  

Perhaps the memory bank will be filled with just enough good deposits that when times get bad, the bad will be less.  Less stressful.  Less angry. Just a little bit less than it was for my mother and me.

I view this beach weekend as one large deposit.  A no-brainer addition to the memory bank.  You let two little boys run the beach wildly at sundown and you’ve won parent of the year. You let them eat spaghettios for 2 lunches in a row and they think they’ve won the lottery. Throw in ice cream, an afternoon of fishing…life can’t get any better.  At that moment.

I am smart enough to know that a few fun weekends a year are not going to negate all the drama that is to come.  That, in less than 2 hours, when we pull into the driveway, reality returns.  That although Big Guy and Little Guy should translate the monotonous, day to day routine – the routine where I make lunches, do laundry, drive carpool, sit patiently during practices, wipe tears and give hugs endlessly, all day long, without question or condition -  into deposits for their memory bank, they won’t.  They can’t.   They don’t see the value yet.  They won’t until they become fathers.

I am certain my own mother didn’t see it much differently.  She probably wanted to wish away those years.  Instead, she was forced to hold her breath and grit her teeth as I fought her every step of the way.  She kept doing, even though a willful, stubborn teen made it hard to want to. And now she sits, waiting for the day when she’ll have to remind me that it will pass.  

I’ve changed my mind.  I think the memory bank is for me.

Illyse appears every Thursday on TriangleMom2Mom.